Friday, February 15, 2013

A Reprieve from Oligarchy

Elizabeth Lewis Pardoe

Thank heaven George Washington
and Thomas Jefferson failed to produce legitimate male heirs and John Quincy
Adams was a presidential dud. Our nation periodically flirts with oligarchy,
but with the 2012 presidential results, we spared ourselves for four more
years.

The 2012 election was
historically significant in many ways, but the absence of a single WASP (white
Anglo-Saxon Protestant) candidate merits more than just a mention. Barack Obama
was the only black man on the ticket; but he was also the only Protestant on
the ticket. (Some may quibble with me about Mormonism’s not belonging under the
Protestant umbrella, but Mormons have a prophet of their own distinct from the
16th-century European Reformation that birthed Protestantism in its many
forms.)

In the election of 1960 John F.
Kennedy used his oligarchical capital and rhetorical flourish to become the
first—and still only—Catholic president. In the last election Paul Ryan forgot
to thank JFK for paving the way to his nomination, and Rick Santorum rebuffed
Kennedy’s proposal to keep the Pope out of the Oval Office. Only the victorious
Joe Biden carried Kennedy’s torch as a Catholic able to distinguish between
secular politics and sectarian principles.

In 2008 the first black man to
inhabit the White House succeeded the first presidential son since the second
Adams and trounced in turn a former president’s WASP wife and a WASP oligarch
born to the military elite. Last November when Obama derailed a Mormon
oligarch’s effort to succeed where his tycoon father fell short, he
demonstrated again that the path to power can be paved with Pell Grants as well
as patrimony.

I hope the body politic noticed.
I cringe each time someone asks Chelsea Clinton if she will run for national
office. I certainly hope not. When a woman finally inhabits the White House in
her own—not her husband’s name—I want her to ascend from local office to Oval
Office without the aid of a spousal or parental elevator. Jeb, Jenna, and
Barbara Bush; Hillary and Chelsea Clinton; Michelle, Sasha, and Malia Obama all
have tremendous talents to give their country. They will use them best if they
avoid the patrimonial trail to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and seek new landscapes
in which to excel.

3 comments:

Very witty, and--treasonous, all this talk about the U.S. becoming a meritocracy! Interesting to think, if women and blacks had been allowed to vote in each election since the first, how very different the results might have been.